Will Your Social Media Activities This Election Season Kill Your Business?
Think about it next time you want to post something downright hateful or false about one or both of the candidates. Potential clients are watching.
Strange title, I know. With less than a month to go before this historic election, let me share a story. A friend of mine is a top-rated realtor in South Florida. She is a lovely English woman married to a doctor with three great kids. She just got her citizenship. She shared on Facebook that a couple walked into her office to buy a home and sought her out based upon a referral. The following exchange occurred:
Client: “Are you a naturalized citizen?”
She: “I am.”
Client: “Will you be voting in this election?”
She: “I will.”
Client: “We need to know who you will be voting for before we begin, because we don’t want the commission going to support the party we don’t support.”
Me: ….
How many of you have hundreds, if not thousands, of “friends” on Facebook you don’t really know intimately, and you are sharing your party loyalty, denouncing the other party, posting sarcastic, hateful content and memes, commenting on other friends’ nasty rhetoric because, after all, it’s your Facebook page? Well, this election has shown such ugliness and created such division that it is dramatically impacting family relationships, professional relationships (read “referrals”) and, quite possibly, potential business, including client referrals just like the realtor above.
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You may say, I don’t post divisive things. Or, you may say, “I know everyone on my Facebook page and they know where I stand, so I can do this without problems.” Or you may say you don’t care. But did you know that in the sidebar you can see where your friends are posting comments and you can click right over to where your friend commented even if you are not friends with the person who originated the post? This may be because that stranger may have allowed her posts to be seen by “friends of friends.” Now these friends may initially think, “Cool, he’s a lawyer and my friend is friends with him.” But then they see you saying something about the candidate they despise and they now know they will never use you as their attorney. And you’ll never even know it.
It’s a very slippery slope in a very, very hostile election environment. I can honestly say I’ve gotten extremely angry with “friends” and unfollowed them because of some of the rhetoric. Knowing how they feel about issues which are important to me is not going to leave once the election is over. There will be a tremendous hangover effect once one side is victorious. The rhetoric won’t stop. I also won’t forget who made comments that showed ignorance and turned my stomach because this election has gone so deep for so many. Can you risk letting loose on Facebook simply because it’s “your page”? Should you recognize that as a professional, your social media is a more personal reflection of you in a day and age when people are seeking to work with those who are more relatable and transparent? Just think about it next time you want to post something downright hateful or false about one or both of the candidates. Potential clients are watching.
Susan Cartier Liebel is the Founder and CEO of Solo Practice University®, an online educational and professional networking community for lawyers and law students who want to create and grow their solo/small firm practices. She is a coach and consultant for solos, an entrepreneur mentor for LawWithoutWalls.org, a member of the advisory board for the innovative Suffolk School of Law – Institute on Law Practice Technology and Innovation, an attorney who started her own practice right out of law school, an adjunct professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law for eight years teaching law students how to open their own practices, a frequent speaker, and a columnist for LawyersUSA Weekly, The Connecticut Law Tribune, The Complete Lawyer, and Law.com. She has contributed to numerous legal publications and books offering both practical knowledge and inspiration. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, and you can email her at [email protected].
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